


The Race Car and the Cowgirl

by infinite_weyrbrat



Category: Cars (Movies), Toy Story Series (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, toy cars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_weyrbrat/pseuds/infinite_weyrbrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you're going to skate down a rubber racetrack, do it on top of a car without eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Race Car and the Cowgirl

It began simply enough, with Rex and Trixie getting locked out. It had been bound to happen eventually. Bonnie was good, for a preschooler, at taking care of her toys, but emergencies and distractions happen. And so, on a pleasant spring day, the two dinosaur toys found themselves out on the porch, with Bonnie at Sunnyside and both of her parents out of the house as well. The two had a date of sorts with a computer game indoors, and Rex tended to be anxious anyway, so they raised a ruckus and got the attention of Bonnie's other toys.

Woody had gone with Bonnie to Sunnyside, leaving Jessie, Buzz and Dolly something resembling "in charge." While Buzz and Dolly checked the windows for good ways to lift Rex and Trixie out of the yard, Jessie headed to the rubber racing track in the living room, and pushed it until it pointed at the knob of the front door.

The racing track was a recent acquisition of Bonnie's, although it didn't appear to actually be new. A similar track, with a loop at the bottom, had been a perennial favorite in Andy's room, however, so Jessie knew just what to do with it. She scrambled up to the table to which the top was hooked and pushed the sign for "Bonnieville Flats" out of the way -- it was Bonnie's father's joke anyway, and a terrible misnomer. Jessie grabbed the nearest die-cast race car, and flipped it onto its wheels at the top of the track. With a wild grin, she planted one boot on the hood of the car and pushed off, "skating" down the track.

And the car screamed.

Startled, Jessie lost her balance and tumbled off before she even reached floor level. As ever-helpful Bullseye nosed her up to a sitting position, and Buzz and Dolly looked down from the windowsills in mixed amusement and concern, Jessie stared in open-mouthed surprise.

The race car she hadn't even looked at when she grabbed it on the table now lay upside down, wheels spinning in the air, six inches or so from her boot. The little red-white-and-green formula racer had eyes in its windshield and a mouth in its grille, which would have been downright weird for a Matchbox-type car even if it hadn't been ranting at her in some foreign language.

Up on the table, the other race car, the red one she'd left behind without even noticing it, was laughing at one or the other of them. Maybe both.

"No comprendo?" Jessie said tentatively. She was pretty sure the formula racer wasn't speaking Spanish. At least, it didn't sound like Buzz did when he spoke Spanish, and she'd learned everything she knew about the language from him. But at the moment, it was the best she could do.

The car switched abruptly to English. "You are an idiot! You crashed me! You could have destroyed me."

"Naah," Jessie said, flipping him to his wheels and looking him over. "You're solid metal. You can take a few crashes."

"I am not made for this abuse!"

"Fra-gile," taunted the red car on the table.

The formula racer wheeled around to face him instead of Jessie. "I am not fragile!" he shouted, making the last word sound like Spanish, or whatever it was. Three syllables.

"Look. Watch me. I'll show you." The red car rolled onto the track... and down, and around, and into the air at the end. He didn't have enough momentum by himself to hit the doorknob, but he tumbled hood-over-wheels into the brassy skirt. With an obvious effort, he squirmed back to his wheels. "See? Not even dented."

"You're crazy!" exclaimed the formula racer.

"Jessie's new best friend," muttered Mr. Potato Head from safely out of reach.

"Look," Jessie said to the formula racer, still kneeling on the floor next to him. "I'm sorry I stepped on your, um, face. I'm not used to cars, um, having eyes there."

"Where do you think cars have their eyes?" he asked acerbically.

"Um, in their headlights?" Jessie shrugged. Beside her, Bullseye mimicked the gesture, as best a horse could.

The racer did a pretty good impression of a grossed-out shudder, despite his hard metal body.

"Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm Jessie."

"Francesco Bernoulli. The pleasure is all yours." The racer wheeled around away from her again, picked his way back up onto the track with more of a "walking" gait than Jessie expected from a toy car, and then, to her complete surprise, rolled up it to the table.

"Whoa! I thought you'd need a lift!"

"You don't seem to think very well," Francesco muttered. "I am a _race car_. I don't know what _you_ are, but I do not need anything from you."

The red car had rolled up next to Jessie and Bullseye. "Don't pay him too much attention. His ego came in the box with him. I'm Lightning."

"Hi, Lightning. Um... Would you mind if I tried that run again, with you? We still need to get Rex and Trixie in from the yard."

"Sure thing," Lightning said.

Jessie hit the knob with no trouble on the second try. Perched on top of it, she pulled back the deadbolt and twisted the knob lock, and then she swung around the knob itself to push off the wall and open the door. "Nothing to it," she told Rex and Trixie when they thanked her.

"Then why'd it take so long?" Rex asked with typical naivete.

Hamm saved Jessie from answering that. "Francesco over there is scared of heights or something."

"What? Now you insult me too? I am not afraid! But I don't see why I should like being stepped on, driven off the road, and dropped on my hood from four car-lengths up!"

"Maybe if you were a _real_ race car you'd have to worry about that." Lightning had managed Francesco's trick of driving up the rubber track, and now sat on the table looking smug.

"I am a real race car!"

Lightning went on as if he hadn't spoken. "But you're not even dented either."

"How lucky that is!"

"Wait a minute." Jessie hopped up to the table and peered down at the formula racer. Buzz dropped down from the windowsill and stood beside her, arms folded. A quick exchange of glances confirmed that both were thinking along the same lines. "You said you're a real race car?" Jessie asked suspiciously.

"The fastest in the world," Francesco pronounced proudly.

"Oh, give it a rest," Lightning complained. "I've beat you on Bonnie's track three times this week."

"As in, not a toy?" Jessie persisted.

"Toy? How dare you call me a toy?"

Buzz hid his eyes behind one plastic hand. "Here we go again..."


End file.
